Surprise! Apple Will Soon Let You Disable iPhone Throttling

Upset that Apple has been slowing down older iPhones to prevent battery degradation? The company will let you disable this sort of throttling with an upcoming iOS update.

But that doesn't mean you should.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

In an interview published last night (Jan. 17) by ABC News, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that a developer beta of iOS coming next month will provide users with more information on their states of their battery — and will ultimately throttle CPU performance if things are going awry. It will be released to the public soon after.

The feature has caught the ire of those who say Apple shouldn't throttle performance, even spurring multiple lawsuits. In an attempt to address those concerns, Cook said during the interview that users will be able to turn off the feature. There's still a chance, however, that the handset could suffer from unexpected shutdowns because the feature will be disabled.

Cook's comment on the issue comes after Apple acknowledged that it was throttling iPhone performance when a handset's battery began to malfunction. The feature ensured that the iPhone would remain operational instead of randomly shutting down, but would also throttle CPU performance, causing a slower user experience.

Apple has already apologized for not making the feature apparent to users and has made it easier for anyone who fears iPhone battery problems to get a replacement for just $29. But the apology also came with Apple saying that it will make the CPU throttling feature available on all iPhones, including the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, in a future update.

While we've known about the software update, this is the first that Apple has said there will be an option available for users to turn off the throttling. And while it's still unclear exactly how that may work, Apple has already said that it recommends users do not turn off the feature, for fear of random shutdowns and other problems, if batteries start to malfunction.

They have been purposely slowing down our devices so we continually have to upgrade to (buy) new devices. I hope this news will also let me "un-throttle" my iPad - which has become painfully slow in the last 6 months...